Sands of Time
by Yoruki Hiiragizawa
Summary: A collection of tales related to my 'I Run to You' series.
1. beginning

**_::beginning::_**

 _Mindoir, 2170_

Benjamin Shepard was usually proud to say that his teenage daughter was very mature and hardly gave him and his wife any trouble, but today was not one of those days.

"It's not fair!" Said the redheaded girl, stomping her feet and throwing a tantrum very unlike her. "You said I could!"

"Now, now, Willie," He admonished her without stopping his work on the harvester's engine. "I said: _We'll see_ … Huh…" He checked the valves on the fuel compressor and noticed that the cables were a bit loose. "Could you pass me the screwdriver?" He asked, pointing to the toolbox next to his daughter's feet.

The girl only glared at the box and crossed her arms, looking away when he looked at her with a frown.

 _Yeah_ , _really mature, dear!_ He thought as he went to take the tool himself.

It was not that he was unmoved by her complaint. He knew how hard she had been working, but there was nothing he could do about the matter now. Sometimes life just wasn't fair. The man heaved a sigh and shook his head, resting a hand on his teenage daughter's shoulder.

"Sweetie, you know I can't leave the farm on harvesting season…" he argued, looking into the girl's green eyes – so much like her mother's.

"Well, that's no excuse, dad! It's not like they changed the tournament's date…" she answered back. "It was always going to take place during the harvest season and we agreed that if I made it to the Inter-colonial Championship I would compete!"

"I said: _We'll see!_ " He maintained, going back to work on the engine. "And it was always depending on your mother's schedule…" he explained.

The girl snorted in that un-ladylike manner her mother always chastised her for. "Well, you should've said so from the beginning, then," she commented, bitterly. "'Cause I wouldn't have busted my ass off…"

He gasped. "Language, Willow!"

She ignored him, keeping on ranting. "-To get into the competition if I knew it was up to mum abandoning her precious patients and…"

"You know how important your mother's job is! Our colony feeds thousands of people, including Terra Nova and Arcturus Station…" He was starting to lose his patience. "The livestock health depends on your mother…"

"Yeah, and it's obvious that the cattle are more important to Mom than her own daughter!"

 _Okay, that's enough! She's just being childish now!_

"Jane Willow Shepard, shame on you!" He shouted, making her shrink a bit – though he suspected it was more due to the use of her full name than his voice tone. "You are being unreasonable and immature and I won't waste my breath anymore…" He inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly to calm himself. "I'm sure you still have chores pending on the house. We'll discuss this later."

Without waiting to see if she'd obey him, because he knew she would, he went back to work on the vehicle's engine.

* * *

 _The next day…_

Ben was in the kitchen making his fabled pancakes for his not-so-little-anymore girl when he heard the Skycar land on the backyard.

The previous day, after his daughter's very unusual fit, he got his wife on a vid-call and told her about what had happened, though not in the exact words their daughter uttered – he, after all, knew how much Martha regretted not being as present in their daughter's life as she'd like. It was not that she was absent, but _he_ was the stay-at-home parent.

"Ben! Willie! I'm home!" His wife bellowed from the door.

He got to the arch separating the living room from the kitchen in time to see her step inside the prefab and drop her bags over the couch.

"Mom?" Willow came running down the stairs still in her pyjamas.

"Dear, please, don't run! You'll fall and break something!" Martha chastised her, opening her arms to give their daughter a big tight hug. "Oh, I missed you so much! This last week was awful…"

"What are you doing here?" The girl asked her mother. "You weren't supposed to be back until next week…"

Ben felt his heart skip a beat when he noticed that their kid was as tall as her mother. _When had she grown up like that?_

"Yes, I know, but…" she said, pulling away to look her daughter in the eyes. "I figured I could leave Audrey taking care of Mr. Costa's animals while we're in Terra Nova for the Inter-colonial Karate Championship…" She smirked, lifting an eyebrow quizzically.

"Wait… what? Seriously?" The girl stared at her mother with wide eyes, her voice was slightly wobbly.

"Come on, now, Lil' Willie," he interjected, approaching the two women of his life. "We've always said that serious commitment should be rewarded…"

"And we know that since you got your black belt you've done nothing but pour your heart into training for this competition…" Martha explained, with a proud smile. "I was really upset that I had an emergency call so close to the tournament. Thank God it was not such a serious matter that required me there for long…"

"Thank you, Mom! Thank you, Dad!" Their daughter hugged them with a bright smile – the kind that reaches the eyes – on her lips.

When Benjamin's blue eyes crossed with his daughter's green ones, he saw the regret in them for their argument the day before.

"We are very proud of you, Sweetie!" He said, kissing her forehead.

"Oh! I have to change and go to the Dojo now…" she pulled away heading back upstairs. "I can't skip the last days of practice if I want to win!"

* * *

 _A few days later..._

Jane Willow Shepard couldn't really remember much of what happened in the last twelve hours, five of which she spent buried under the collapsed wall of the Batton-Milot house after unsuccessfully trying to reach the Alliance Outpost base. Not that it actually mattered whose house it had been before the batarians attacked.

If she closed her eyes, she still could hear the gunfire and screaming happening outside of the gym where she and another dozen people were practicing for the incoming martial arts championship. The same people she abandoned while defying a direct order of her _Sensei_ when she stubbornly decided to go out and seek help. The same people the batarians took away while she was buried under the damaged structure of a collapsed prefab.

She was hurting everywhere; her hands were bleeding from when she tried to punch her way out of the metal structure. She probably broke her wrists. No, she was certain that they were broken. And all the better.

They were at fault.

Her fists and her legs.

She'd break them as well if she weren't so damn tired to move.

She had no use for those useless limbs now. They hadn't been any help against the slavers and their weapons. They were the reason she was now seated inside an Alliance vessel all by herself instead of being on Mr. Costa's Ranch, comforting and being comforted by her mother. Her mother, who, if she hadn't insisted on going to that stupid tournament, would be on the other side of Mindoir when the attack happened. Would be safe in that remote area of the colony instead of being on the main settlement.

Would be alive instead of being dead.

Dead… beside her father while trying to escape their house. They were shot in the back, the Alliance soldier told her…

She was alone, now…

She hadn't cried when the Alliance soldiers confirmed her parents' IDs were on the casualty list. She tried. She wanted to… but couldn't. Why couldn't she cry?

Her vision was blurry and she couldn't breathe. She felt numb. She felt her gravity centre shift. She was falling and everything was getting dark.

"Zabaleta!" She heard a feminine voice call out someplace near her. She was expecting to hit the ground, but the fall never came as something held her in place. She couldn't tell what it was, though. Every sensation and feeling and sound were fading. "Ernesto, I think she's in shock. Call out medical!" Said the voice, but it was far away.

Everything was far away now.

 _It's almost over, now_. She thought. _I also can go to where mom and dad are._

She could also go…

When, some time later, she opened her eyes, staring at a sterile white metal ceiling, she was no longer numb.

It hadn't ended. She wasn't dead.

She was still alive.

With a choked sob, she started to cry.


	2. motion

_**::motion::**_

 _Citadel, 2170_

Doctor Aki Yoshida stopped at the infirmary door, watching while the nurse, Rubia, checked the patient's condition. As PTSDs goes, this was one of the most challenging cases the woman had since leaving Earth behind and coming to the Citadel almost fifteen years ago.

When Rubia finished checking the girl up, Yoshida stepped back and asked for a status report. "So?"

"We're keeping her lightly sedated for the moment, as you suggested, and as she refuses to eat, there's no other choice other than to keep feeding her via IV," she sighed tiredly. "I still can't believe she would throw herself against the wall like that. She fractured her shoulder before we got a hold of her…"

"The other kids are terrified of her…" Yoshida mentioned, massaging her own head. The throwback of the girl's tantrum left her busy the whole day.

"Do you think she's dangerous?" Rubia asked wide-eyed.

"No, I saw the security vid of what happened and she had an opportunity to hurt others, but her actions were calculated to only inflict harm to herself instead." She explained. The nurse didn't seem really convinced, but that wasn't important. "I was alerted about an incident here this afternoon…" the psychologist prompted.

"Oh, yes! That…" She seemed uncomfortable. "It was nothing major, but I was talking to her, trying to soothe her while hooking her up to the IV and I made the mistake of saying her name, said it was a pretty name, and she flipped on me, crying out that she was Shepard, just Shepard."

"And… you just said her name?"

"Yes, you know, _Jane Willow_ is not a very usual combination, but I thought it to be cute, so…" she shrugged at a loss about what else to say. "When I started calling her by Shepard, she calmed down…"

"That's odd, but I should probably warn the others, nonetheless…" she muttered, seeing the nurse nod. "Anything else?"

"No, ma'am; nothing of notice. She's been apathetic ever since the pain medications kicked in…"

"Alright, thank you, Rubia." The doctor said, entering the room and sitting in the chair beside the bed.

The girl had arrived at the Citadel a bit over a month ago and spent most of that time under medical care. The first two weeks had been to recover from the injuries she received during the attack at the Colony: she had a dislocated shoulder, the Tibia had a tiny fracture, and her hands had smashed Phalanges, and Metacarpals severely damaged. Up till a few decades earlier, she'd be debilitated for several months before her bones could recover, but, since finding the Prothean data cache on Mars and joining the Citadel species afterwards, the miracles of modern medicine and the usage of nanotechnology now allowed such injuries a fast healing.

Not that it mattered as long as the girl kept inflicting new injuries to herself, refusing to cooperate with her own recovery.

Despite being asleep, the kid still seemed to be restless. She looked tired and malnourished and was covered with contusions and abrasions on her hands, arms and legs. If the woman didn't know any better, she'd think the kid was getting daily beatings at the Orphanage. It was a rather self-destructive behaviour the girl was exhibiting.

Yoshida understood survivor's guilt; both in a theoretical and a personal level, but her work required her to keep a professional distance, what didn't seem to be reaching any actual result.

The girl barely exchanged two words together with her or anyone at the Orphanage. _So, maybe, the answer to_ _this very_ _case specific would be a more personal touch_ , she considered, holding the datapad she brought with her from her room tightly against her chest. _It's a long shot, perhaps even wishful thinking, but maybe it would help this child just as it's helped me after Mikio's death_ , the doctor sighed, looking up to find two green gems staring at her.

"Hello, Shepard, how are you feeling?" She inquired, seeing the girl turn her eyes to the ceiling with a pained expression – she suspected, however, that it had nothing to do with physical pain.

"Fine," answered Shepard with a tiny voice.

Yoshida maintained silence for a few minutes, waiting; if the girl wanted to say something, she'd be there to listen. She wasn't holding her breath, though. They'd been there, done that. It couldn't continue. The girl needed to move, or be moved by something.

"I brought you some reading material," she said with a quiet voice. It still startled the girl, but Yoshida was satisfied that the Shepard kid at least looked at people when spoken to. "Do you know what a Manga is?"

"Yes," Shepard nodded.

"Have you ever read one?"

"No," she answered and looked away, mildly uninterested.

"I'd like you to read this one," The doctor turned on the datapad and showed it to the girl. "It's called _Fruits Basket_ ; it used to be my daughter's favourite manga."

She refrained herself from mentioning that it'd helped her after said daughter passed away. Every mourning process was unique and people going through it don't like having their pain measured and compared to that of others. The story in question was actually an emotionally charged story that dealt with many degrees of mourning by many characters. Reading could be a way for people to allow themselves to show emotions and grieve without reserves.

Shepard turned to face her again with a deep frown. "It's a silly title."

 _Wow! A full sentence. We count our wins where we can,_ the doctor allowed herself to briefly smile, before continuing. "This is a classic. Early 21st century."

"I'm not interested," Shepard shook her head and looked back to the ceiling, ending the conversation right there. Yoshida knew that routine already. From now on, the girl would not say anything else, no matter how much the doctor pried.

"I'll make a deal with you," she stated, getting the girl to give her a sideways look. "You read this and, while you're reading it, you won't need to talk to me at all. About anything…"

Shepard looked at her, considering the proposition for some minutes. "And after?"

For someone whose actions seemed to imply a high disregard with the future, such a question gave the doctor some measure of hope. _To count our victories where we can, indeed._

"Well, after that, we'll see…"


End file.
